


Seeing Red

by fififolle



Category: Blake's 7
Genre: Breaking and Entering, Chemicals, Gen, Lichen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-16
Updated: 2018-12-16
Packaged: 2019-09-20 10:41:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17021145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fififolle/pseuds/fififolle
Summary: Vila realises he is dealing with an unusual kind of door lock, but then has to come up with a way to beat it. Avon looks on in his own inimitable way.





	Seeing Red

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lsellers (Annariel)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Annariel/gifts).



> A/N: many lichen do actually change colour when challenged with certain chemicals, and these can be identifying characteristics. I think it is cool, anyway :D I was hoping this met with Annariel's hope for little details that ground things out in reality :)

Avon thought that if his eyes rolled any more they might just fall out of his head. "Face it, Vila. That lock has beaten you, and you know it." He sighed, for variety, and walked back to a convenient rock to perch upon.

Vila hopped from one foot to the other and ignored him. With his back to Avon, he looked at the door in the side of the hill. "I think it might have a chromatocrypt chip in there! I just need..." He turned around, and held up a finger. "We need to go back to the shuttle."

"Finally," drawled Avon. "That's what I said ten minutes ago. We'll take the shuttle, and head back to the Liberator to get some heavy cutting gear."

"No, no!" Vila protested, and Avon could sense the other man was in the middle of one of those genius ideas that occasionally gripped the thief. When he was sober.

"No? Then how will we steal the data disks?"

Vila grabbed Avon's arm and dragged him towards the shuttle. "I just need to get some chemicals."

Avon knew there was no arguing with the man when he was in this state. Much as he hated to admit it, sometimes... Vila was right.

When they got back to the shuttle, Vila raked around under the seats and in the compartments, until he produced a small bottle, with a flourish. "Aha!"

Avon scowled. "Anti-rad gel? What the hell are you going to do with that?"

Vila's grin was pure mischief. "Watch me!" he cackled, and ran back towards the fortified complex hidden in the hill.

Avon gave a mental shrug and followed him. There was nothing more satisfying than watching Vila work... or fail. Both equally entertaining, he found.

Vila stopped on the way to scrape at branches on the trees. He was muttering to himself the whole time. Just for a moment, Avon wondered if the thief had finally, gloriously, lost it.

Standing in front of the door, Vila prodded the locking panel. "See? Chromatocryptography... The locals... they must be able to polarize their skin... If I can just..." 

He sprinkled some of the powdery green tree scrapings onto a piece of bark, and opened his bottle. "This lichen will turn a sort of red colour, if I've got this right. Trees are acid here... _Hypogymnia physodes..._ "

Avon wondered where the hell Vila had learned all this stuff. Because, for all he sounded crazy, he was also beginning to make sense. "I haven't seen anything red since we got here. No berries, no red rocks, nothing red in the village."

That earned him a grin from Vila. "Exactly."

Exactly what, Avon didn't know, but it was his job to say something encouraging at the right moment, and, very occasionally, he did it.

"Just a little drop..." Vila carefully let a drop of liquid fall onto the lichen, and within seconds, parts of it began to turn a red-orange colour. "Come on..." hissed Vila, and pressed the mush to the sensor on the door panel.

Avon was almost surprised when the door clicked open and hissed as it slid slowly aside. "Well done, Vila. Your tree trick worked." He raised his handgun and strode calmly into the hidden building.

"You're welcome," panted Vila, hurrying to catch up. "But it wasn't the trees, it was the-"

"Vila, I really don't care." Avon almost believed his own mantra. "Shut up and help me steal the data disks."

Vila sighed. "Fine."

They walked all the way down the dark tunnel before Avon added, "I'm sure the others will want to hear all about your clever trick when we get back."

He could almost feel Vila's smile behind him.


End file.
